


Out here, on our own

by Hagar



Category: Power Rangers Turbo
Genre: Domestic, Gen, Male-Female Friendship, Teenagers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-28
Updated: 2014-08-28
Packaged: 2018-02-09 04:02:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,056
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1968249
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hagar/pseuds/Hagar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>17 years old, on your own in a strange new town. That can get lonely, even if you have an entire team of Power Rangers at your back.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Out here, on our own

**Author's Note:**

  * For [predilection](https://archiveofourown.org/users/predilection/gifts).



> Set after _Passing of the Torch_ , obviously, but before _The Turn of the Wretched Wrench_.
> 
> Thanks to Lovechilde, IShouldBeWriting and Rosabelle. This wasn't the best time for me to be writing. Thanks, y'all ♥.

It was just a weekday evening. A breeze was coming in through the window; TJ was trying out a recipe he hadn’t cooked from before, and opened the windows to let out the smell of cooking. Another upside of the open windows was that they let in the sound of the television from the Grants’ home. Mr. Grant was watching some sort of a game - TJ wasn’t sure what it was, exactly, as the sound didn’t carry _that_ clearly, but it was nice to have some sort of company.

Jake Rosetti and TJ’s dad were old friends, but TJ couldn’t live with his school baseball coach. Instead, Rosetti had talked to some friends of his and found the Grant family. The Grants had a secondary unit, the sort of a space a college student could let. It wasn’t big, but it was clean, cheap even for Angel Grove, and - most importantly as far as TJ’s parents were concerned - had landlords that Rosetti could vouch for and whom the Johnsons could then trust with their teenaged son.

Everybody at school thought TJ had a sweet deal. He was fending off attempts to make his place the Party Place almost every day. But the truth was, it got pretty lonely pretty often. He spent his days not having a moment to himself, what between school, practice and being a Ranger. Being able to go back to his own place for the night should’ve been a relief but instead, TJ found himself feeling suffocated by it as often as not.

There was a knock on the door.

Startled, TJ turned the stove fire to a minimum and went to the door. It didn’t have a peep hole, but it did have a deadbolt - not that was going to help much if someone decided to kick this door in, but that was a paranoia for a different day. TJ opened the door cautiously, and then promptly shut it, unbolted it and opened it the whole way.

“Cassie? What are you doing here?”

Cassie breezed in. She had her school backpack on her, and it looked fuller than usual. “Can I crash here for the night?”

“Of course,” he replied slowly as he shut the door behind her. She didn’t have more than her schoolbag, he noticed. “What happened? Is everything all right?” A terrible thought occurred to him. Cassie was living with the Hammonds. “Is Ashley…?”

Finally, Cassie turned around to face him. “Ashley’s fine. It’s just that her dad’s an asshole.” She sniffed. “What’s cooking?”

“Charcoal, if I don’t get back to the stove.” Which he did. “There’s water in the fridge. Glasses on the shelf over there.”

“Thanks.”

It wasn’t just for the water.

“No problem,” he answered. “So. Ashley’s dad?”

“Yeah.” She took a gulp of water. “He has _ideas_ about what girls should or shouldn’t do, how we should or shouldn’t dress…”

TJ kept his eyes on the pan, carefully. He knew those ideas. It still stung, sometimes - there were days he still felt like he should be the one protecting others, Carlos too maybe, and he wanted to push the girls and Justin back. He’d pushed Cassie back as much as he’d egged her on, day they met. That wasn’t right: Cassie wasn’t any less good a Ranger than he, had as much at stake as he did, wasn’t in any more danger on the field. But he still had to push back the urge to shove her behind him, sometimes; caught himself thinking _What did you expect, wearing those shorts?_ at another girl in school and then chided himself, because if that was Cassie he would never think that was reason enough.

He was learning. But he was young. Mr. Hammond was older, more set in his ways and raised in a different age. TJ had met Ashley’s parents: they both had definite ideas about what Ashley should or shouldn’t do.

Our of all their parents’, Ashley’s were guaranteed to react the worse if they ever learned that their daughter was a Power Ranger.

His watch beeped.

“What -”

“Oh, that’s the past-” He didn’t get to finish the sentence, let alone to reach for the pot of pasta. Cassie grabbed the pot holders and the pot, and had apparently located the colander he’d prepared in advance in the sink.

“Damnit, the sauce is supposed to wait for the pasta, not the other way around.”

“The pasta is going to be fine,” Cassie told him with a smile. “Relax. Anyone ever tell you you’re a perfectionist?”

“You, all the time.” He would’ve stressed about it, he knew - he had stressed about it, for a moment, before Cassie’s teasing tone made his shoulders relax and put a smile on his face. “Thanks.”

She shrugged. “Whatever.” Then, on the word’s heel: “Are your landlords going to give you trouble? Over me staying, I mean.”

“It’s fine,” he told her. Stacy Grant was guaranteed to call his parents and his dad was guaranteed to call him for a Talk - but his dad also knew him, and would believe TJ when he’ll say that nothing had happened, and Cassie was just a friend who’d needed a place to crash.

“This is nice,” Cassie said. She was leaning back against the sink, looking at the rest of the one-room apartment. “Kinda bare, though.”

“I just moved here,” he said, defensively.

She look she gave him said, clear as day, _I see your bullshit and also right through it._ She didn’t say that, though. Instead, her tone was warm as she asked: “Doesn’t feel like home, huh?”

“No,” he admitted after a moment. “It didn’t.” _Doesn’t._ He’d meant to say _doesn’t._ But Cassie was standing within arm’s reach of him, and it occurred to him that he was home wherever Cassie was with him. It’s been true for a while, had become true at some point between Cassie following after he’d left the bus and meeting her again at the Power Chamber, smiling at each other in wonder with morphers in their hands.

The sentiment was the same for Cassie, judging by her smile.

“It’s going to be fine,” he told her. He told both of them. “We’re going to ace it.”

“Of course we will,” she replied. “We’re us, right?”

He laced their fingers together, and affirmed: “Yeah. We’re Us.”

 


End file.
